He had lost it during the boat ride! It was the weapon he intended using on the missionary. A light tap behind the ear would finish the work of the narcotic.
Abie was resourceful. He thought in split seconds. He heard voices below. One was Yetsky Wop’s.
“My last man’s all right,” he assured the captain. “I’ll put him in a bunk.”
The scene in the fo’c’s’le of the whaler was not exactly to the crimp’s liking. He turned from the foot of the ladder and searched the gloom for Holy Joe.
The missionary struck a match. The yellow flame passed from bunk to bunk. Evil, vice-stamped faces, answered the search. The match went out. Abie, crouching with a belaying-pin in his hand, suddenly felt his wrist gripped with compelling fingers.
He writhed. His arm was bent back. Holy Joe’s voice was low and demanding.
“Drop that! Now turn. Now go up the ladder. Follow me. Don’t twist. It’s no use at all, Abie.”
The astonished skipper of the Bowhead was a witness to Abie’s forced exit from the booby-hatch. Holy Joe, so called along the Barbary Coast, hurled the crimp against the fife-rail on the foremast.
The preacher’s smile was bland. He swiftly closed the hatch. He drove in a holding-pin with his right heel.
He turned to Abie: